I went ahead and got the IM 4 pack today and I am glad I did. It scanned at $24.99, so after they let me have it for $19.99, they pulled he tag.

I do not see the price on this coming down, at least until after Christmas, if there are any left then. I saw the Avengers preview on line this morning and Jackson appears to have a much bigger role in this one, in the same suit as the figure. I think when the preview is more widely seen, the "I have to have that NOW" people are going to snap up what is left of these. That is the downside. The upside is there will probably be a single, but it will probably be it the last and least distributed wave.

I finally got the variant Whiplash from the Mandarin wave at Ross for $5 today. Only figure they had and the package was shredded, but the figure is intact.

CCC.

_________________The expediency of acquired knowledge is preponderant upon determining a justifiable conclusion, unattainable at this time.

Ever since some of you have mentioned finding some IM figures at Ross and Tuesday Morning I've been checking some of my local ones near my office and on the way home and have found some.

I was picking up some Thai Food for the wife out in Fairfield, CA. and I stopped by Ross a couple of weeks ago and I found a lone Mandarin hiding behind some other stuff. Was happy to find it.

Last week I picked up the Iron Man can't remember what it's called but he's #32 at a Tuesday Morning. Unfortunately I think I just missed the Iron Monger there.

Yesterday stopped by a Tuesday Morning in Dublin, CA. and found the Ultimate Iron Man. I love this figure. Think I'll go pick up the Ultimate Cap now from the Captain America line to stand next to him on the shelf. Since I just picked up the Ultimate Iron Man 2 book at a half price books store I was hoping to get that Ultimate IM.

Still haven't found that War Machine or Whiplash. I was on the fence about War Machine but after seeing more pics online and I didn't know the helmet was removeable or replaceable and that clinched it for me.

TRU does have BOGO going on the IM2 line, desperately trying to clear it out, but the TRUs around here never got the last wave. Nobody did. You'd think both Mattel and Hasbro would figure it out that later waves in their lines are simply not getting out to the stores because of bad case packouts, but it keeps happening over and over and over.

Marvel Universe eventually gets out, usually months after it's supposed to, because there are so many peg warmers. IM2... missed the entire last wave. Same thing happened with the IM1 series. On the Mattel side, virtually no stores got any Green Lantern basic figures past the first 9. Only a couple of Walmarts got a wing display that included figures 10-16. No store around here ever received any figure past 16.

You're preaching to the choir here, man. If they could just figure out balance and not overload stores with the first waves.

But I think the problem is the stores and the toy companies want to sell way more product than they are actually going to sell in today's world/economy.

But this has been going on for years. They overload stores with tons of single peg-warmer characters in their case loads, never change the case loads, then wonder why later wave orders drop off. Because they have tons of worthless plastic on their pegs that nobody is ever going to buy! We tell them this, they keep doing it.

Amazingly enough, I stopped in to Target this afternoon and found that not only were the IM2 figures reduced to $6.99, but they had two of the last wave on the pegs, picked up Stark Racing and the Mk V Stealth armors. I figured it would be yet another final wave that I'd never see at retail, but maybe I'm wrong. Off to other local Targets this weekend to see what else I can find.

Nope, went to two other Targets last night and both of them had the exact same two last wave figures. Did those get released in a case pack with a bunch of peg-warmers?

I think they were released in a case with one of each of the last four plus some other decent figures, like the drones and movie Whiplash. It's not a horrible peg warmer wave.

For me the only sorta difficult one to find was the Stark Racing Armor. I'm pretty sure this wave is still arriving at Targets, I think I saw a fresh wave put out just the other day. Lemme know if you still can't find them in a bit.